


Perfect

by Laora



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Petunia character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-14 01:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18042935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laora/pseuds/Laora
Summary: Petunia gets what she wants.





	Perfect

_(October, 1977)_

* * *

Lily comes to the wedding with that _Potter boy_ , even though they never sent them an invitation.

“She’s your sister,” her mother says, disapproval in her voice. “We’re paying for dinner, so it shouldn’t bother you that they’re taking two extra seats.”

It’s Vernon’s parents that are paying for the wedding, technically, and she has to bite back a snarl as her mother fusses with her hair. It’s thin and blonde and nothing like _perfect Lily’s_ , and everyone in the room knows the reason her sister didn’t get an invite was because Petunia didn’t want her here at all.

“She’s not going to bother you,” her mother promises, and Petunia’s face twists, “and James will be a perfect gentleman. You have nothing to worry about.”

And it’s true - the two of them don’t even sit with the family, at the front of the church. She sees her sister’s hair halfway back in the pews, sitting among some of her old neighborhood friends. Beside her is Potter - tall, and lanky, and she nearly doesn’t recognize him for the way his hair sits neatly, for once, against his head.

They both look unnatural in their - in their _normal_ clothes. Lily’s wearing a conservative green dress, and Potter’s in a brand new suit and tie, and Petunia hates them both for it. Why don’t they just - stay in their _own little world_ where they belong, where she won’t be bothered, where she can move on with her perfectly normal life -

She holds Vernon’s hands, here, before a hundred people who know them but don’t understand her at all. She looks at her husband and she loves him - she loves how normal he is, how very _non-magical_ he is in comparison. She sees him in his smart, perfectly tailored tux, and she loves how _right_ it looks on his frame. She sees him, here, scarcely knowing anything about magic but determined not to love her any less for it, and she knows this is what she wants.

Her sister can keep her frogs, and her floating teacups, and her scruffy boyfriend with the vault of gold underneath London. She will take Vernon over all of it, forever, and she is _grateful_ for it, that she has not been caught up in the insanity that ensnared her sister.

“I do,” she says, and her voice does not waver, and Vernon’s eyes are full of love as he slips a ring onto her slim finger. Plain gold, with an enormous diamond bought with his last bonus, and it is so _perfect_ and _right_ that she feels tears forming in her eyes.

This is the only thing she’s ever wanted, and she smiles into the kiss as Vernon leans toward her. A man who loves her - a man who will take her away from everything her sister has become.

(Lily does not approach her at the reception, though Petunia sees her speaking with their parents, and Potter’s face looks a little pained - and there’s spite in her smile as she thinks, _good riddance._ )

(Her little sister may come uninvited and unwanted to her wedding, but she will not steal the spotlight as she has all their lives.)

.

.

When the invitation to the Evans-Potter wedding comes to 4 Privet Drive, two years later, Petunia throws it straight in the trash.

.

.

A little over a year after that, a birth announcement for a _Harry James_ meets the same fate.

.

.

What’s a little harder to ignore is a squalling baby on her doorstep, left in the middle of the night, wrapped in a pale blue blanket with a thick envelope tucked inside.

Her sister stares up at her through watery eyes, and even before tearing the envelope, she knows whose child this is.

(What is her _freak_ sister’s _freak_ son doing here? Has she decided to abandon him, just like she did Petunia, all those years ago?)

She looks out into the night, but there is nothing and nobody here. It’s past midnight, and every other _respectable_ homeowner in the neighborhood has gone to bed. Dudley’s sleeping through the night, now, like the good son he is - and Vernon had not stirred at the sharp rap on the door. It has fallen to her to answer the door in her nighty, with rollers in her hair, half asleep and frustrated and confused.

Harry James Potter stares up at her, and cries, lying here as he is on her front stoop in the middle of the night in November. What is he doing here? Why does she care so much, when she lifts him into her arms?

(Why do tears well up in her eyes as she reads this letter from Albus Dumbledore, and chokes sobs into her elbow, and locks the door behind her as she carries Harry inside?)

She has not seen her sister in three years. She has not cared for her for much longer than that. Lily Potter made a choice, when she went off to that ridiculous school - and Petunia has never forgiven her for it. Who leaves their sister behind for strangers with magic wands - who gives up _family_ for -

Who goes and gets themselves _killed_ in a _war_ when they’re only twenty-one, when they’re only _children_ and Petunia cannot stop the sob that rips from her throat because Lily has gone the same way as their parents, as -

Lily is dead, and Albus Dumbledore says she is the only one who can protect her son, and her first thought is to throw the boy out on the curb because she never asked for this, she never _wanted this_ but something stays her hand. Something, deep in her breast, looks down at the child in her arms and sees a little sister throwing pebbles into the stream, and plucking flowers to weave into their hair, and smiling bright and blinding when Petunia -

She looks at this little boy and sees her sister, and part of her hates this but the rest of her only grieves. Lily is dead - Lily died a hero, died to save her son, and now Petunia, what? Will throw out the last remainder of her blood family? How could she, in the face of such sacrifice?

She has wanted nothing to do with her sister since that damned letter arrived. But Lily came to her wedding, and sent presents for Dudley, and sent her updates through the post on their own lives, even when - even when -

(She’s always thought of her sister as a freak. But what kind of monster would she be to do this?)

So instead she moves through the house, bouncing the restless child in her arms (smaller, lighter than Dudley, though she thinks they’re the same age), meaning to wake Vernon, to tell him what has happened. He won’t be happy. She can’t say she’s happy either, but she doesn’t think she has a choice.

(She loves Lily enough, she thinks, for this.)

(But not enough to forgive her for leaving her behind.)


End file.
